The Bankruptcy of Architecture: Archaeology of Telecommunications

26.8.10

Archaeology of Telecommunications

The visit to OTE Building in Chania could be described as commitment to an archaeology, undertaken through examination of contemporary architectural ruins and remains of a previous technological era that came already to an end. Detached from their former state of operation, the material was left unused and discredited, transformed from a functioning mechanical system of distributing communication and an ordered, useable, stored material to heterogeneous populations of fragments occupying an empty building.

This year's workshop investigated the significance of reconsidering the technological equipment of OTE's telecommunication infrastructure in many other levels and as a layer of reading 'bankruptcy of architecture'. The study of the building was connected to a second detachment process, where objects were selectively collected form piles of paraphernalia removed from the place they were found only to form new heterogenous collections

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Participants

DIMITRIS ANTONAKAKIS (A66 Architects) / ARISTIDE ANTONAS (Antonas Office, Associate Professor, University of Thessaly) / ANDREA BALESTRERO (Gruppo A12) / ETHEL BARAONA POHL (dpr Barcelona) / VASSILIS BOURDAKIS (Associate Professor, University of Thessaly) / ELIAS CONSTANTOPOULOS (Associate Professor, University of Patras) / DIMITRIS DIMITRIADIS (Writer) / DIMITRIS ISSAIAS (Associate Professor, National Technical University of Athens) / ELINA KARANASTASI (Lecturer, University of Crete) / POLIXENI MATZIOU (Associate Professor, Dimokritio University of Thrace) / GEORGIOS PANETSOS (Head, Department of Architecture, University of Patras, University of Crete) / NIKOS PATSAVOS (Assistant Professor, University of Crete) / VASSILIKI PETRIDOU (Professor, University of Patras) / PANAYOTA PYLA (Associate professor, University of Cyprus) / MARIOS PHOCAS (Head, Department of Architecture, University of Cyprus) / ALCYSTIS RODI (ass. Professor, University of Patras) YORGOS TZIRTZILAKIS (DESTE Foundation, Assistant Professor, University of Thessaly) / DIMITRIS TSAKALAKIS (University of Crete) STAVROS VERGOPOULOS (Assistant Professor, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) / ARISTOMENIS VAROUDAKIS (Professor, University of Crete) ARIADNE VOZANI, (Assistant Professor, National Technical University of Athens)

together with
ELINA AXIOTI (mRes, London Consortium, London) / DIMITRIS GOURDOUKIS (phD candidate, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki) / PLATON ISSAIAS (phD candidate Berlage Institute, Rotterdam) / PETROS PHOKAIDES (phD candidate, National Technical University, Athens) / EVI SOUGKARA (masters, Central Saint Martins College, London) / YANNIKOS VASILOULIS (architect and web designer) / ALEXANDRA VOUGIA (mPhil, Columbia University New York)

About KAM workshops

The KAM summer workshops were initiated as a particular way to think again what "architecture in a local frame" could mean; how an architectonic investigation could be driven towards local phenomena? Aristide Αntonas, Filippos Oraiopoulos and Ζafos Χagoraris formed the first working team. A determination to approach architecture as a "site specific elaboration" brings us to the 2010's "Bankruptcy of Architecture": it was always a question of propagating the local to an international level: an interest for a city’s “insignificant” places was the first manifested declaration of the team. The third workshop (proposed under the name “paradigmata”) represented Greece for the 9th architecture biennale of Venice. The biennial project, extended the investigation to insignificant places around Greece and in Cyprus. The “paradigmata” project formed the field of an intense experiment of defining sites through groups of invitees. After the “paradigmata” year, the term «κτιστό συμβάν» (built event) was used in order to describe a particular architectonic area between a procedure and the procedure’s traces: "built event" was also the name of a series of works undertaken by different teams, directed by Antonas and Oraiopoulos. A theatrical preparation of a built procedure, a work of tracing, and the procedure’s resultant traces were considered as equally important parts of the same constructive procedure: a problematic description was always at stake defining or "building" insignificant places. The deposited projects were proposed as alternative views of the places, as constructed definitions of the insignificant spots.